I don't think there's any official rules.
I've used such a familiar as an encounter before, as it was looking for someone to avenge its master's death (or, better yet, raise him from the dead). I had it slowly losing Intelligence and abilities over a couple of days, and completely freaking out about the experience as it got dumber and dumber. In this case, it was the raven familiar of a decently-powerful wizard (low teens, I think).
They revert to being normal animals. The time frame in which this happens has never been clarified, only that it happens.
It's a matter of the magical connection between master and familiar. When the master dies, that connection is severed.
Same thing happens if the familiar is dismissed for a new familiar.
Somebody (3pp) did a piece dealing with this in a module or other downloadable. I apparently didn't get it as it is not in my library.
Steeldraco has a serious plotline that I really need to steal...
They stay by the corpse of their dead wizard and refuse to eat until they waste away, just like you occasionally hear about from loyal dogs in real life. Either that or they throw themselves at the wizard's murderer and get killed. If they happen to win their final fight, THEN they go back and stay by the corpse, refusing to eat until they die.
Nope, not official, but seems realistic, touching, and a practical way to keep unwanted unattached familiars from wandering the world.
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There's got to be some kind of support group with a 12 step program.
I had a sprite PC that was a sorcerer based arcane trickster. His background story was that he was formerly a powerful wizard's familiar, which explained his above average power and eventual gain of powers. It was fun to play up.
A recent discovery of mine is that it is different for different familiars. Read the entry on Imps for example. They like to ride the souls of their former master to the Abyss where they can hand over their former master's soul over to their dark overlords for a promotion to a greater Devil. I believe the same is true for Quasit. So in other words, some Familiars do not stick around on the Material Plane after their masters pass on.
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Now I want to encounter an old house in the middle of nowhere with an old couple living in it and taking care of just below a hundred abandoned familiars.
I vaguely recall some flair about a former familiar that hung around: Old Scratch from Second Darkness maybe? But in this case, it was already an intelligent being.
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From Tome and Blood, a 3.0 "splatbook":
Death of a Master
If a master dies and the familiar survives, part of the
master lives on in the familiar. It loses any extra hit points
and skills it gained from the master but retains most of its
familiar abilities. It is treated as having a master two
levels lower (but never below 1st level). If the master is
later brought back from the dead, the bond is reestablished,
and the familiar gains whatever abilities go along
with the master’s new level.
To my knowledge, the matter hasn't been revisited since, so whether or not your games run it this way will be up to what the DM thinks.
I don't believe the matter has been officially revisited, but I amm recalling James Jacobs saying that once the connection between master and familiar (or animal companion) is severed the creature returns to its original nature.
Of course, whatever fits for your storyline is alright. If you want it to work a certain way, just have it work a certain way.
They revert to being normal animals. The time frame in which this happens has never been clarified, only that it happens.
Do you have a cite for this?
Same thing happens if the familiar is dismissed for a new familiar.Now I'm imagining a rejected familiar following its master around like a stalker...
Doug M.
I do not. It's not in the rule books. It's just something I remember reading somewhere on the board. I can't for the life of me recall where though.
It doesn't particularly matter though, just change it to fit whatever you want it to be. Whether they remain or turn back to the original really only affects the story. It doesn't make much of a mechanical difference.
A witch's familiar retains its spell knowledge for 24 hours; I think that's the only Pathfinder rule on the subject.
Legacy of Fire AP has a cat familiar that is (apparently) immortal and sticks around with powers after the masters' death. I'm told there are a couple of others floating around in published adventures, but no hard rules on it.
Personally, I prefer it that way. But I think Donna Noble's end was worse than just getting killed for similar reasons.
Donna Noble's end is probably the saddest on Dr. Who.
Are we considering the companions to be the Doctor's familiars in this analogy? There's a certain logic there...
Depends on the familiar. Mostly they end up as stew or BBQ meat for the surviving party members
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W6GDil0rGls
They revert to being normal animals. The time frame in which this happens has never been clarified, only that it happens.
It's a matter of the magical connection between master and familiar. When the master dies, that connection is severed.
Same thing happens if the familiar is dismissed for a new familiar.
That is flat-out horrifying, the familiar gradually becoming less and less intelligent until it's finally just another animal. Dismissing a familiar is like purposefully infecting an NPC with Mindfire.
I think I'll have to have a familiar that's lost its master and is getting really desperate in one of my games eventually.
In one of my campaigns a familiar lived as long as its mage did (barring outside influences) plus its natural lifespan. Basically while it was a familiar it's life was on "pause" as it were. It was considered a sign of high favor and good luck to have a familiar passed down from your master to you when you completed your apprenticeship and this was a major indicator of a master's 'inheritance'.
However because of this tradition some familiar's started to become... more in their own right and after a minimum of nine 'generations' of mages a familiar had the chance to become sentient in its own right and develop magical powers outside of being a familiar. When this happened the familiar bond was broken. However this was a rather recent development and not really recognized yet by the mage community at large.
I'm suddenly getting this weird idea of a serial familiar chasing his "fix" by allying himself with more and more powerful mages. Something along the lines of an OWoD ghoul. Could make for an interesting NPC for a future game...
Since Eidolons normally go poof when their master dies (and temporarily go poof if their master is even just knocked out or moved too far away), but occasionally manage to get unfettered (although no rules exist for how this happens), why not have the same possibility for Familiars? Normally they revert to whatever they were before they became Familiars, but every once in a while one manages to hang onto at least some of what it gained.